J & S Franklin Ltd2011-05-12 09:39:23

As the DefenCell team prepare to exhibit at this year's important FPED VIII event, DefenCell is at this very moment holding back the floodwaters in the town of Smithland, Kentucky, USA

Situated at the confluence of the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers, Smithland has never had to deal with floods as dire as that which late April and early May 2011 has delivered. With little notice, the community of just over 400 people had to prepare for a record surge in river levels. The Louisville office of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) contacted Fiberweb® to request the emergency installation of a Defencell® Flood Wall system.

Within 24 hours of receiving a call from the USACE, Fiberweb delivered three miles worth of Defencell Flood Wall units that, once installed, would provide almost four feet of additional flood protection height to a key stretch of the levee in Smithland. As a testament to DefenCell's ease of use, within an hour of delivery to Smithland small teams were able to start placing, connecting and filling, the DefenCell Flood Wall systems using primarily skid steers. After the first couple of hours, they were achieving an installation rate of 20+ units per hour. At that rate, the teams installed the equivalent protection of approximately 22,196 sandbags in only the initial three hours after delivery of the Defencell Flood Wall system.

Over the next 34 hours and under the guidance of USACE, installation teams formed from volunteers including local citizens, city employees, National Guard support, and even inmates from nearby correctional facilities. The end result was that more than 10,500 linear feet of Defencell Flood Walls had been installed, 700+ units were filled, stretching over one mile in length--stacked two units high--to help raise the town levee to meet the pending flood projections.

The speed of this installation is in stark contrast to traditional sandbagging operations. In such a short window of time, more than 4,700 tons of sand had been contained in the Defencell Flood Wall system and is successfully containing the floods. All this was accomplished with the help of a Defencell Flood Wall system taking advantage of its flexibility, ability to contour to uneven ground surfaces with minimal prep work, making angles and curves, while being light weight and man portable for ease of placement.

This project represents the largest emergency installation of a Defencell Flood Wall system in the United States.

The Defencell Flood Wall is a geotextile-based system, developed for ballistic defences in military operations, and can be quickly constructed utilizing local fill, sand, or other common aggregates.

As DefenCell once again demonstrates its versatility as a vital tool in the armoury of any military engineering unit, at this year's FPED V111, J & S Franklin and the DefenCell team will demonstrate the effectiveness of the DefenCell Barriers.